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Securing a New Idea for the Public Domain?
piotru asks: "I live in Japan and am implementing a new idea in software. I was told that it deserves patenting, but I intend to make sure that it remains in public domain (preempting anyone else from patenting it). What can I do to make sure that no one else patents my idea? Here are some choices I have come up with: 1) Patent and apply free license; 2) Apply for the patent, then drop it (will be published with time stamp, and more than likely will be costly); or 3) Copyright the implementation (will have a time stamp, but will it remain compatible with the GPL?) Any ideas?" Some of these issues were touched on in an older story, but the basic premise remains a difficult issue. How would you go about releasing an idea to the public domain while making certain that close software couldn't co-opt it out from under you?
..somewhere where you can prove the date later on, preferably with a working model/implementation. after that you'll be having hard time getting a legit patent for it even if you tried it.
oh and why you think copyrighting it is gpl incompatible? what do you think gpl depends on if not copyright law? all gpl'd stuff is copyrighted..
besides, if you just write it it will be copyrighted by you anyways.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
A better way would be to get the idea published in a trade journal (an ACM or IEEE journal sounds pretty good). In addition to firmly establishing it as prior art, it will also make the idea available to others.
If the idea is really significant, then these journals "should" be willing to work with you to get it published. That's what they're there for, after all.